Monday, April 12, 2010

Over the weekend my colleague Bryan McAllister-Grande, the NAFSA Research and Scholarship Network Leader, posted to the network discussion board about his plans to establish a social media presence for the Network (it’s free to join all NAFSA networks by the way). This post today is mostly a copy and paste job (with Bryan’s permission) with a few comments from me inserted:

Over the coming months, we're going to be taking the (somewhat reluctant) plunge into social media and trying out a few new communications features for the Network. Although the main activity will continue to happen on these discussion boards, those of you using other tools may want to check these out for access to quicker and sometimes better information. I hope this allows for some more widespread participation and interactivity, as well.

This experimenting is also part of a specific effort to reach out to graduate students across the world and create a wider community of graduate students engaged in international education research. More details on this coming soon.

For the moment, follow or join these if you'd like:

RS Network on Twitter: http://twitter.com/IEResearchNAFSAWill be used primarily for tracking and sharing latest research in the field (my commentary: I’m a big fan of Twitter and it is where I get most of my international education related news and information and I have met some really great people that I look forward to meeting in person soon.)

RS Network on Facebook: http://bit.ly/b3Qp6GWill be used primarily for networking with graduate students, although also for general discussion and tracking links. Anyone is welcome to post info, links, etc. (my commentary: I was slow to adopt Facebook into my new media toolbox but I really like “Fan pages” and use IHEC Blog’s Facebook page frequently)

These will be short blog-style posts and thought-pieces published every so often. Please let me know if you'd like to author a guest "note" or would like us to feature one of your own blog entries on our notes page. Our first guest entry is from David Comp, (indeed a re-post of his own blog entry), appropriately on "free international education resources" including social media resources. (my commentary: thanks Bryan for including my post as a guest entry! I hope people find the list to be helpful and if anyone knows of other resources that should be added to the list please leave a comment on that post and I’ll take a look. Additionally, I really like how Bryan is using the “Notes” section and will begin to adapt my Facebook use for IHEC Blog to include this practice!)

Academia.edu is a fairly new site, a kind of "Facebook for professors." We created a research area called "NAFSA Graduate Studies in International Education" but there are a host of other research interests related to international education to follow as well. (my commentary: I have had a profile on Academia.edu for some time now [needs some updating] and I really like it. It provides some interesting and useful metrics for me personally and has allowed me to connect with some other great people I most likely would not have connected with otherwise)

my commentary: Some more great things happening in the NAFSA Research and Scholarship Network (and the NAFSA Teaching, Learning and Scholarship Knowledge Community as a whole) and I recommend joining all of their networks to be plugged in [again...they are free]! I'll be posting soon about something interesting and hopefully informative that is scheduled for next week on the Research & Scholarship Network and you need to subscribe to check it out.

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International Higher Education Consulting Blog provides timely news and informational pieces, predominately from a U.S. perspective, that are of interest to both the international education and public diplomacy communities. From time to time, International Higher Education Consulting Blog will post thought provoking pieces to challenge readers and to encourage comment and professional dialogue.

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I currently work as the Assistant Provost for Global Education at Columbia College Chicago. Prior to my position at Columbia College, I worked for seventeen years as Associate Director of International Programs at the Booth School of Business, as Senior Adviser
for International Initiatives in The College and as Assistant Director in the
Office of International Affairs, all at The University of Chicago. I also serve as a Study Abroad Research Consultant for the Center for Global Education at California State University at Dominguez Hills. Additionally, I have taught online for The George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development.

I received my B.A. in Spanish and Latin American
Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, my M.S. in
Family Science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and my Ph.D. in Cultural and Educational Policy Studies, Comparative and International Education from Loyola University Chicago.

The opinions expressed are my own, and they do not
necessarily represent the views or opinions of my employer.